The transatlantic slave trade was the trade of African people supplied to the colonies of the “New World” that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 16th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to the New World (primarily Brazil). Some slaves were captured by European slave traders through raids and kidnapping, but most were obtained through coastal trading with Africans. Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the New World, although the number of people taken from their homestead is considerably higher. The slave-trade is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning “holocaust” or “great disaster” in Swahili. The slaves were one element of a three-part economic cycle—the Triangular Trade and its Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and millions of people.

But before the slave trade, thousands of years before the New World was discovered there was a game called Mancala (also called Oware, Bao and many other names). It is an abstract strategy game that originated in Africa and predates Chess and its predecessors. Game boards have been found carved in stone all up and down the Egyptian temples that lined the Nile, including the Temple of Karnack. It is a wholly mathematical game - its more complex versions have as much scope as Chess, despite its primitive origins.

The diffusion of pit and pebble games throughout the world from Africa can be explained by the migration of African people to various parts of the world, both voluntary and forcefully as in the case of the Trans-Atlantic and Eastern slave trades from Africa. This is confirmed by the use of the same rules in parts of West Africa and the Caribbean. It is played all over the world from the Far East, Middle East, Asia, Africa, to the Caribbean. There is even evidence to prove that it was and may be still played in its traditional form in some southern states of America and in some of the former Soviet states.

There are many versions of pit and pebble games, over 300 in all, having differing rules. Three major types exist, distinguished by the number of rows on the board. Two row boards are the most popular of which Oware is an example. These games can have a varying number of pits along the board from 5 to 14, but the 6 pit long board is the most common, played predominantly in West Africa and the Caribbean. Bao is an example of the Four-row type; these have other names depending on the version. You will find these played mainly in East and South Africa. Three-row type such as Gebeta is the least popular and is confined to Ethiopia and Eritrea to our knowledge.

Oware or variations of this name is the most popular name the game is known by, i.e. the 2×6 type. Examples of these are Warri, Awale, Awele, Awari and many more. Oware is the name given to the game by the Akan speaking people of Ghana. Even this name is a generic name, with at least three versions being covered by this generic name. Traditionally and today the version that has been used in competitions is known as Abapa (literally translated as the ‘good version’). Abapa has always been known as the adult’s version, played by those who have graduated from playing Nam-nam the children’s version.

In Ghana, Oware has always occupied a prominent role in society being regarded as a game of the Kings of Asante and Denkyira. It was played on beautifully carved Ivory boards in the shape of a stool embellished with gold. So engrained was it in society that it even had its own social taboos. At times it was used in the Coronation ceremony of the Kings of some African communities. There exists an Ashanti legend, which explains the origin of Oware. It says that in order for a man and a woman to have more time to play the game, they decided to get married. Warri being the Akan word for being married.

As a social tool Oware is never a game between two people, but has always been a game involving all who witness it. Spectators will usually give advice and join in the banter that is synonymous with the game. In areas of the world were it has been traditionally played it is used as a focal point for people to meet entertain themselves and pass time. Leaders used it as a means to hone their leadership skills and get to become more acquainted with their people.

For thousands of years Oware has been used as an educational tool for children in Africa and all over the world. In the past 400 years this aspect of its history has been brought to the attention of Europeans through various researchers and observers who had an interest in the game for various reasons. Many academic authorities and educationalist have trumpeted the educational value of the game and have called for it to be utilized in schools. Today it has been recognized as a very useful educational tool and is being taken up by an increasing number of schools.

I am reprinting a cartoon series I drew the year before Obama got elected, titled “Birth of a Notion” a play off of the early white pride film, “Birth Of A Nation.” I am tossing in some unpublished strips in along with some new ones!

Be advised, the content of some of these cartoons are frank and displays hate speech with awful realism.

If there are any African American newspapers that wish to publish theses in their papers, I offer them to you for free. Leave me a note in my ask box and I will send you the hi-res versions.

When I went to school, we were never taught Black History. We never learned about the Black leaders, the long, agonizing history that brought most Blacks to America. Those atrocities were glossed over in favor of mindlessly boring topics like the X Y Z Affair.

This series of cartoons will review Black history as told from a Black mother to an interracial child. This series will be ugly, course, horrific and truthful. I will mostly abandon the commentary for an article on Black history from open source essays on the web.

This series is not about Obama or Hillary. I want to you to try to imagine how Black families tell their children of the atrocities their ancestors, all of them, suffered because of the color of their skin. Try to imagine how Black families counsel their children when someone calls them “nigger” for the first time. Can you imagine the bone crushing emotion that must well up? Can you imagine the agony, frustration and anger?

Can you imagine being the Black preacher who tries to paint a picture of a just God every Sunday? Especially in a country that claims where the notion of racism is a thing of the past, the job is difficult.

These strips may at times be entertaining and sometimes they may not - mostly not.

I don’t want you to laugh so hard you cry, I want you to cry so hard you do something about it

Q:I don't approve of any form of terrorism, but wouldn't you agree that 'radical Islam' is EXACTLY how Christians behaved in the Crusades?

Anonymous

Yes I do. That was the reason I started “Western Civilization” off in the Crusades. Christianity still has its elements of hate; Westboro Baptist Church and the KKK are a couple of examples. Just yesterday, there was a bombing at a NAACP office here in the States.

French security forces launched a major manhunt in the capital after the gunmen fled the scene of the attack, The Guardian reported. Police are searching for two brothers from the Paris region and another man from the northern French city of Reims in connection with the attack, a police source told Reuters.

Today’s cartoon speaks to a starting point of Fundamentalist Islam vs. Western Civilization during the Crusades. It highlights the static nature of Fundamentalist Islam, a relic of the Iron Age, to modern day Earth.

As Islam has yet to have a reformation on the scale of Christianity, in many ways, it is still stuck in the Iron Age with Western Civilization quickly outpacing it, albeit with frequent ups and downs while experiencing spectacular advances and clutching horrors, but with each step, further separating itself from the Crusades and the Iron Age.

Now, as humanity continues toward a world of atheism over mythology, Fundamentalist Islam’s continues to appear out of touch and more so with every terrorist attack perpetrated in the name of Mohammad and/or Allah.

There our soldiers toiled, bled and died, yet we seem to treat the vets of that theater as an afterthought.

Back in 2006, maybe 2007, I would regularly attend an informal coffee clutch with like-minded individuals. Well, one wasn’t so like-minded. When discussing the wisdom of conducting war in the Middle East, I brought up the waste of American lives at the hands of a wrongful Bush policy. One person spoke up and said about our new military recruits, that met a quick death in the Middle East, “they knew what they were getting into when they enlisted.” In one phrase, she placed the blame of the deaths of our soldiers ON our soldiers. This person has no remorse, no sympathy over the destroyed lives and carnage that was happening in our collective American name.

I almost fucking hit them.

Anyway, the quote of Dick “Redacted” Cheney in the strip is contributed to this person’s callous disregard of human life.

The thing I find laughable about today’s GOP talking points is how Obama should chill his heels and WAIT for the new Congress to come to him to tell him what to do.

Obama wasted YEARS on waiting for the GOP’s temper tantrums to somehow magically end. Since he began using his Executive power, that Bush/Cheney GREATLY expanded, now the GOP are telling the President he is sabotaging future relations with the them.

TCD is a strip about living a Blue Life in Red America which can be annoying as Hell.

If you want to drop me a line, comment about Town Called Dobson, yell or express your indignant outrage over something in the strip that has pissed you off, or ask for a link exchange, drop a note in my ASK BOX.